Pixelmator Adds Support for OS X Mountain Lion

The Pixelmator Team today released a major update of Pixelmator, its inspiring, easy-to-use and feature-packed image editing software for the Mac. Designed to take full advantage of OS X Mountain Lion and the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, Pixelmator 2.1 adds support for iCloud, a new Effects Browser with new Vintage and Miniaturize effects, smart Alignment Guides and several other enhancements.

“Pixelmator continues to be a big hit among both professional and amateur image editors, and we’re thrilled to deliver even more features at a very affordable price,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “With support for Mountain Lion, iCloud and the new Retina display, Pixelmator 2.1 is ideal for Mac users looking to tap into their creativity with a full-featured, easy-to-use image editing app.”

The new Effects Browser takes the guesswork out of selecting effects by collecting, organizing and providing an animated preview of all of Pixelmator’s Color Adjustments, Blur, Distortion, Tile and dozens of other effects, together in one helpful palette. Users can also use the browser to tag and access Favorites in one place.

Pixelmator 2.1 also introduces several brand new effects, including the Vintage, Miniaturize, Black and White, Snow and Rain effects. With the Vintage effect, users get eight new photo filters that give pictures the look of old image processing and bring to mind photos from other eras. Meanwhile, the Miniaturize effect makes real-world scenes appear scaled down to size with a few clicks. It’s an optical illusion that gives ordinary objects in photos the endearing look of a toy model only inches tall.

Building precisely aligned image compositions is now short work in Pixelmator 2.1, with the new smart Alignment Guides. This new feature lets users position objects with pinpoint accuracy and build compositions quickly by using individual objects or image elements. The Alignment Guides gracefully appear and disappear onscreen as they are needed, while Object Spacing automatically shows when objects are equally spaced on the canvas.

In addition to full compatibility with OS X Mountain Lion, Pixelmator 2.1 comes with iCloud support, which automatically and effortlessly keeps Pixelmator work up to date across all of a user’s Macs; as well, complete Retina display support lets users fully enjoy image editing using Pixelmator on the new MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Pixelmator 2.1 is available exclusively from the Mac App Store for a limited-time price of $14.99—a substantial savings off the usual price of $59. It is also available as a free update for existing users.

“Pixelmator continues to be a big hit among both professional and amateur image editors, and we’re thrilled to deliver even more features at a very affordable price,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team.

LOL ! You interview your own member of YOUR team to create a success story.
Still waiting to see real professional use PM…

As I always said, what’s implemented already in Pixelmator is implemented like a pro. It makes it a genuine Mac-only App. What’s not there though, is a little bit shameful for the time being (the lack of layer styles will always haunt the most addicted Pixelmator users).

Filters? really? the same filters we have since 1990 in photoshop and today almost nobody use?
why waste your time on a filters gallery for users so noob that don’t know what is Pointillize and need an animation?
we need liquify AND advanced layers for non destructive editing! (at least I need)
it would be nice to have panorama stitching, no tiny world effect.
and layer styles and the desaparecido second color box!

Looks like an amazing update so far. Two gripes though:
It’s disappointing there’s still no support for multi-touch gestures for those of us who use a (Magic) Trackpad as well.
Personally I’m also dying to see an option to change the interface to Silver/default Aqua. Having everything black is a bit jarring. I’ve seen/heard quite a few others mention this as well. I fully understand the black is supposed to help you focus on the content, but default Aqua can be much easier on the eyes.

As an FCP X user (and trainer) I highly recommend Pixelmator over PS for so many reasons. This update makes it even better. If you’re an FCP X users, the interface is super familiar. Especially the new effects browser. Keep up the GREAT

Piexelmator goes from strength to strength – just got to keep ease of use at the forefront. PShop is now so fully featured you can age a user by how he works with the application! So glad I held faith with you guys.

@edwood Maybe they’re not chasing photoshop. Photoshop is a $700 professional program. Maybe you should let them be Pixelmator and be ok with that. I’m am. If you need the capabilities of photoshop, just go use photoshop and stop complaining.

@ John: You are kidding right? The whole point of this app’s awesomeness is that it can be custom tailored to the platform. If they ported it to Windows it would be just another image editing tool.

Anyway, guys I’m a longtime Adobe CS user who started looking around after getting a Retina Macbook and realizing Adobe wasn’t going to give a timeline around a retina update. I have only just started using Pixelmator today but wow…I’m really hoping it can totally replace Photoshop in my workflow and so far I see no reason why it can’t. I feel terrible paying only $16 for this app…I would have honestly spent 10x as much easy for such an amazingly well designed tool.

I will make sure to convert over as many people as I can and thanks for building this!

@john : To give you a brief answer, this App relies on so many OS X-only technologies, it would be impossible to port it over Windows. Making good use of the built-in OS APIs is what makes Pixelmator so great.

I’m a bit disappointed about the Effects browser. The previews are quite small an my 27″ iMac and a lot of Effect names are truncated so it’s hard to get them (German). It would be nice to be able to resize the thumbnails.

Much more disappointing is the loss of menu commands. So I can’t use the help search anymore. I know about the search in the browser, but there’s no keyboard shortcut for that. Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, with the loss of the menu commands I can’t assign keyboard shortcuts to often used effects anymore.

I bought Pixelmator today because Photoshop CS6 looks so crappy on my rMBP that it is almost unusable. I just took some full res test shots with my Nikon D800 + Nikon 105mm f/2 DC Portrait Lens and have to say I am completely floored by how much better the images look in Pixelmator compared to Photoshop. I am sure that eventually Adobe will upgrade their software to work with the retina display, but right now they aren’t even in the ballpark of PM 2.1. Just sayin’ …

I really was excited by the update but instantly became disappointed. The new effects browser is really nice but my workflow was really thrown by the removal of menu commands. Why remove all of the commands from the menu bar when users have been taught to use it? I would happily use the effects browser if it weren’t the ONLY way to access many tools.

Loving the new update. Like many people have already mentioned though, the biggest thing holding me back from using it day-to-day is the lack of layer styles. Being able to add gradients on shapes would be a huge plus as well.

Just wanted to ask exactly what date this reduced price is on for?
In the UK Mac App Store it’s currently £10.49. I want to get the app, but am waiting to get my new laptop as Apple will give me a student gift card for the App Stores.
Thanks.

To me Pixelmator is useless because Pixelmator insist that cropping an image is something different then resizing an image. It doubles the workflow, I have to both crop AND resize. In Photoshop it’s done in one cut – and if I want to crop and NOT resize, I just pick a crop without proportions. Yes, as simple as that! In the latest update to Pixelmator, a crop bug has reappeared: the custom crop setting does not work, and the workflow of cropping AND resizing remains. Why? Because Pixelmator wants to change what is a standard workflow and force-teach everybody that cropping and resizing must be two different things. Because the ease of cropping/resizing is such an essential part of my image editing I have to stick with Photoshop. Too bad, I would love to go the native Mac way 🙁

Thanks hamsta. Still, in past versions I could assign keyboard shortcuts like in every other Mac app through System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts. I consider this to be a bug.

@Ingmar: I noticed this too, the snapiness of pm seems to slowly fade away as the feature list increases.

Also, the I am desperatly trying to find a replacement for the ‘Mask Alpha Channel” Filter which was available in the color filter menu before (I know of workarounds but they are not that simple and don’t give that good results).

I don’t want to be all negative, it’s still a great app, I am just not happy with many decisions made in the past versions.

I agree with the two three other people here regarding the “Mask to Alpha” filter. Why on earth deleting filters and don’t tell about it up front? I use that filter a lot to paste images into layer masks. And the workaround suggested on the forums comes close but it is not the same. For crying out loud there is an effects/filter browser now! Filters are easier to find, so no need to go and delete filters that people have come to rely on. This also makes me wonder about the teams Image Editing knowledge. At least I’m certain there are no image editing people in your beta-testing team.. if you beta-test at all that is.

I really like the app. It’s a real bargain, and it meets most of my needs. With that said, I really miss the Layer effects in Photoshop. I miss the dynamic Drop Shadow layer effects, and others like bezeling and doing add/subtract/multiply, and layer masking.

I was really looking forward to the new effects browser, but not at the expense of the menu items. The effects browser is a great ADDITION, but a lousy REPLACEMENT. I look forward to the update to fix this. Also, the effects browser would be nice if larger thumbnails are possible. I find it hard to see.

this update make me think it’s like when you have a dinner to prepare and you still have to make most of the main courses but you loose time with cupcake decorations.
I really want to use this software but right now too many things are missing in my workflow, I wish they will add PRO features (that should be there from the start) at a faster pace.

Hmmm… Nice “toy” features that will please the consumer end of PM users. Still really need effects layers and the ability to make selections from vector paths and to save vector paths to become a PS replacement for (my) pro work in my view. I love using PM when I can, but it just doesn’t have a full pro feature set yet. Oh well, more waiting I guess. Would be nice to be able to change the background from black to a mid grey or white for working on dark images i.e. rock concert pics etc.

Pixelmator is a great software, I liked at the first use.
But this update for me was a downgrade. I explain:

The second color option is vanished, keyboard shorcuts too. The effects window is good, but delete the filters menu have no reason. And talking about the filters, why simplified and changes names? Really i spend 14 minutes searching the Stripes filter, now named Bars, again no reason. Some filters have missed options, like the angle or size, and that’s make the software less pro, like I see of course.

Please update Pixelmator, put again the second color option (in the tools bar), make the filters more configurable.

Hi? i would like to know why i can replace colorizes, ’cause i just to download it on apple store and this is like much more things that i cannot make because in my browser image i just seven choices that’s it. please help me because i’m being pissed 🙂 thanks guys

@FoxTC: Then buy it right now. There is no reason not to do so if you want to purchase it after the trial version expired.

All in all I think the Pixelmator Team is doing a great job. The newly added features are top notch, like everything else the PM team does (so why remove features??)
It’s true that since the last update PM has become slower (for me) but I am sure they are going to fix that.
What I am not really sure about is why they removed some features (like keyboard shortcuts through system preferences, filters, etc.).

Help! Can I have my good old Pixelmator back, please? Do not find any stuff I used for ages like Brightness/Contrast or the effects in the bar. I dont care for shiny effect icons – I want to find it at once just by the word.
Please, please, please: Any chance for me to go back to the old navigation? Thx, Michael

If you’re trying to pick up Photoshop users, as I am, then epic fail – sorry. Bring back the menu-driven effects and filters. There was no reason to delete these, in fact it is completely dumb of you. Great app otherwise.

I just bought Pixelmator 2.1. I like the program, but as soon as I start using layers everything slows down. Most of the time, I see only the color wheel (pinwheeler) . All other programs work perfectly. I have Mountain Lion installed on iMac. Is this the reason! Will it be corrected within a short time? I am very disappointed that the program did not function properly and the complete lack of response to this problem, which I can understand many agree? I have a lot of patience, but do not understand the lack of reaksion from Pixelmator, if there is a problem? I would like an answer.

Sorry, I have not been able to get Pixelmator to work since updating to Mountain Lion. As a webdesigner, I rely on software that works… even after the update, Pixelmator keeps crashing. I am now trying Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.

I’m on trial right now and experiencing heavy slowdowns on a retina macbook 2.6. Cropping a CR2 file down is instant, reverting the changes a second later takes about 24 seconds to undo the changes. Thats just the first thing i noticed after the first 2 minutes of usage.

“Pixelmator continues to be a big hit among both professional and amateur image editors, and we’re thrilled to deliver even more features at a very affordable price,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team.
LOL ! You interview your own member of YOUR team to create a success story.
Still waiting to see real professional use PM… http://www.kocaeliajans.com